What he forgot to say
by mimnim
Summary: Master Shifu forgot to tell Tigress how much he loved her. Now his life is in danger and he regrets that. Father/daughter fic, no slash, not a deathfic!


**When I wright Chifu I actually mean Shifu, I didn't know how to spell his name, sorry.**

It was a day off at the Jade palace, so Po and all the furious five were taking the chance to visit their familys. All except Tigress that is. Shifu was Tigress's only family, as she was adopted.

They were both training furiously in silence. Tigress almost wanted to say something, but really she had no idea how to start a conversation with Shifu. He was so rapped up in his own thoughts, that he wasn't even bothering to correct her mistakes, even if they were few and far inbetween.

Just then a little bird messenger flew up to them with a loud flap and a squawk.

"Evil, strong, Rhinos, by the peach tree!" the duck panted, before passing out from fatigue.

Tigress looked at Master Shifu, wanting help as the rest of Furious five weren't there, and he nodded. Usually the Furious five and Po could handle this sort of thing on their own, but today it was just Tigress so Shifu went with her.

They ran through the woods that were by the jade palace at top speed, racing to stop the evil Rhinos before they(the rhinos) reached the village.

Soon, they arrived at the sacred peach tree and indeed their were two Rhinos standing there.

"Well if it isn't the great Master Shifu and a little kitty cat!" one of them jeered.

"What did you just call me?" Tigress' voice was low and deadly, making the enemy take a step back. But he hestited for only a moment, before trying to punch Tigress. She easily dogged and knocked him over from behind. The other Rhino charged at Shifu, who simply took a side step before attacking aswell.

It would seem like this would be an easy fight, for the Rhinos were stupid and clumsy. But they did have two massive avantages. They had a lot of endurance, and very thick skin. Every blow Tigress or Shifu landed did virtually no damage.

In the end Tigress decided to use Monkey's old technique of stealing one of the Rhino's belts. When he knoticed that his trousers had fallen down, he ran off into the wood. His companion glared at Tigress and Shifu, knowing that he couldn't take both of them.

"You may have one this battle," he growled, slowly moing his hand behind his back, "but we'll see how well you fight with this!"

That's when Shifu knoticed the knife the Rhino was holding in his hand. He only had time to do one thing: push Tigress out of the way.

He yelled in pain as he felt the knife peirced his skin, the force of it pushing him backwards, off the cliff.

"Noooooooo!" he heard Tigress yell, then roar in rage.

He grabbed randomly with his arms and by chance grabbed a root that was sticking out of the cliff edge. He stopped falling.

The strain on his arms was almost to much to bear, and he was fighting to stay concious, his side hurt so much.

He could hear Tigress fighting at the top of the cliff, and suddenely a horrible thought occured to him; did she know he loved her? When she was younger he had always kept his distance, trying not to become attached the way he had to Tai Lung.

Even so, he had always loved her.

But what if he had been too distant?

He was proud of her, and he loved her as his own child, though he had no memory of ever telling her that.

If he died now, that was what he would regret the most.

This gave him even more determination of staying alive, even though every breath hurt. He vowed to talk to Tigress one last time at least, to tell her. He had too. He had to make up for all that time, when he had been too caught up in all his sadness and regret over Tai lung to pay enough attention to Tigress.

He felt tears in his eyes. It was completely his own fault if he never got to tell Tigress how much she ment to him, how proud he was of her.

And now he might die, and she would never know.

"Master!"Shifu looked up slwoly and squinted. He good just make out Tigress reaching her arm out to him, though everything looked blurry.

"Just hold on, I'm coming to get you,"

Like he had much choice, he thought to himself.

Very soon he felt some strong arms pick him up. Usually he hated being picked up, just because he was a small animal it didn't mean he was cute and cuddly, but right now he had no choice.

Then he passed out.

As soon as Tigress had scared off the rhino she had rushed to the ciff edge and looked over. She had been so relieved to see that Master Shifu hadn't fallen all the way down, but he was obviously at the end of his strength; he couldn't hold on much longer. She hadn't been able to reach him, so she had climbed down a little way, so that she could pick him up.

She knew that if he had been able to he would have protested, but right now it was an emergency.

She carefully climbed back up to the top of the cliff, before making her way as fast as she could to the doctors.

Another thing Shifu hated, going to the doctor. He always said that they didn't know what they were doing, but Tigress knew that Shifu needed treating immediately if he was to live. He was a small animal, and whether he liked it or not, and so he was inevitably weaker, and could die of a wound faster than someone Tigress's size.

...

Tigress paced up and down the waiting room impatiently, waiting anxiously for the doctor to tell her anything.

"Master Tigress, the doctor has requested your presence," said the soft silky voice of the receptionist.

Tigress impatiently pushed passed her and went into the doctor's room.

Shifu was still unconscious, but he no longer had a knife in his side, which was an improvement.

"Well?" Tigress glared at the doctor, as if daring him to give her bad news.

The little rabbit doctor gulped.

"I have done as much as I can, so I suggest you take him home, and put him to bed and see if he lives," the last part came out as a squeek, as the doctor hid his head behind his clip bored.

"What do you mean, if he lives?" Tigress spoke quietly as she was trying to control her temper.

"The knife was poisoned, and there is nothing I can do to help, you'll just have to wait and see," the doctor was scared of cats anyway, so telling an extremely strong tiger some bad news always made him nervous.

Tigress sighed, and gently picking up Shifu, made her way back to the palace. It was late afternoon, so no one was around to see her, and she couldn't tell the others as they were all in other valleys, and wouldn't be back till tomorrow afternoon. (Even Po and his dad had gone camping somewhere).

...

Shifu groggily opened his eyes. The first thing he knowticed was that the pain was mostly gone, and that he was alive. The second was that he was in his room in the Jade palace. The third was that Tigress was sitting on the floor next to his bed, fast asleep.

She seemed sad and scared, even though she was fast asleep.

He gently reached out his hand and touched her shoulder. He didn't know whether he should wake her or not. He looked out the window and noticed that it was early morning.

But she looked so tired.

But maybe he could find out what the matter was if he woke her.

Eventually she awoke by herself.

"Master, your alive!" was the first thing she said. She was about to hug him, but she stopped herself just in time.

Shifu was almost disappointed she'd stopped. He then knowticed that she must have been crying a little while ago, as she had tear marks right down her cheeks.

"Tigress?" he asked tentavely. He really didn't know how to go about comforting her.

"I, I thought that you might not make it, the, the knife was poisoned, and the doctor said, he said..."

"Well I'm alright now," Shifu smiled at her. Then he remembered his promise to himself. How he had promised to tell her how much she ment to him, if he ever got into bad position again and wasn't quite so lucky.

"I, err..." gosh this was going to be harder than he thought.

"Err, thankyou for saving me," he stated, trying to find a good conversation starter. He then realised that he had had hardly any normal conversation with Tigress since he had adopted her. It had always been either a lesson or an instruction. He realised with sadness that he had done a very poor job as a father, after all, that was what he was aswell as a master.

"I should be the one thanking you, that knife would have hit me in the heart if you hadn't pushed me out of the way," Tigress said. She still sounded slightly off, as if this conversation was weird. Then again, Shifu thought, it was rather.

"Listen," he said, taking a deep breath, and sitting up propaly.

Tigress prepared herself for a lecture of some kind,

"Tigress, I need you to know that I love you as my own daughter, and that I am proud of you, I know I wasn't the best, and that I never told you. But when I was on that cliff yesterday, I, I realized I would never have told you if I died, and it scared me, I was so scared that you didn't know," Shifu broke off, mainly because he was shocked to find tears in his own eyes.

Then Tigress hugged him. Shifu realised that he hadn't been hugged by anyone since Tai lung was a boy, and so instead of struggling he hugged back.

The end.


End file.
